This packet provides a basic understanding of age-related changes and their implications for adults with developmental disabilities and their families. Topics include: the aging process and its implications; supporting individual choice and community membership; and engaging and supporting older families in making future plans for their relative with a disability. It contains guidelines and practical suggestions for supporting individual choice and community membership, healthy aging and family future planning.

This guidebook provides information about the various uses of assistive technology for accessibility, activities of daily living, augmentative communication, computer access, environmental control, seating, mobility, and work site modification. It contains photographs and descriptions of devices, their applications, and guidelines to help families and users become informed consumers in selecting equipment. The guide was written by assistive technology clinicians and reviewed by consumers, families and community agency professionals. It was developed by the Assistive Technology Unit at the Institute on Disability and Human Development in collaboration with the RRTC on Aging with Developmental Disabilities.

Older Adults With Mental Retardation and Their Families (1997). Heller, T. A chapter in Bray, N. W. (Ed.) International Review of Research in Mental Retardation-Vol 20.

This chapter addresses the needs of older adults with mental retardation and their families from a psychosocial model that examines age-related changes and from the broader perspective of demographic and service trends affecting this population.